President Barack Obama smiles at a reporter shouting a question as he walks with aide Reggie Love, left, and trip director Marvin Nicholson as they leave the Treasury Building and walk to the White House in Washington on Wednesday.

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Atlanta

Has the Obama administration's broadside against Fox News – claiming that it is not a news organization – chastened the network in the slightest?

Yet critics of Fox News claim at least one victory. After teasing coverage of Oct. 17 Tea Party protests, Fox didn’t cover the events on TV, instead relegating coverage to its website. For a network that had expansive coverage of the Tea Party Express leading up to the 9/12 protests in Washington and had commentator Sean Hannity headline a Tea Party in Atlanta this summer, that "says something,” says Jess Levin, a spokeswoman for Media Matters for America, a liberal media watchdog group.

For many media experts, however, the question is: If Fox did blink, is that a good thing?

"Reacting to criticism is a very dangerous thing for any kind of publication to get involved in, especially when the criticism is ideological,” says Tom Edsall, author of “Building Red America” and political editor at The Huffington Post. “I do think that Fox has often been tilted to the right, but if they’re now inhibiting their coverage – if these Tea Parties [that they didn’t cover] were newsworthy – that’s not good.”

With its concerted campaign against Fox – including not sending administration members to talk to Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace – the White House has stepped up an unusual campaign on a major media organization.

The boycott came after Fox News broadcast an undercover investigation of ACORN, a liberal community organizing group, which led to its defunding by Congress. Fox News also highlighted reports that green jobs czar Van Jones signed a petition that questioned the official version of the 9/11 attacks, leading to his resignation.

The White House could be trying to marginalize its loudest opposition, including Fox, in an attempt to paint the GOP as a white, primarily Southern party, according to a Politico analysis.

But the White House’s tactic has befuddled many pundits and reporters. ABC News’ Jake Tapper asked White House press secretary Robert Gibbs Tuesday whether the White House is "saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization ... do not work for a 'news organization"?

That opinion is shared by Media Matters, which has catalogued a long list of Fox’s perceived breaches of journalistic ethics, including the repetition of GOP talking points in news programming, the use of Republican-funded research, cheerleading for the Tea Parties, and fundraising activities by some of its hosts. (For a complete list, look here.)